But Ghaith’s three federal public defenders said they can’t begin until January 2014 because of the deeps cuts in the federal budget known as sequestration.

Defense attorney Martin Cohen said the three attorneys working on Ghaith’s case have to take five-and-a-half-week furloughs by October as a result of the $85 billion in so-called “sequestration” spending cuts.

“It’s extremely troublesome,” Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan said as he declined to set a trial date. “Stunning.”

The sequester won’t hit Capitol janitors hard but trials for accused terrorists might be delayed due to this massive cut (read: slight decrease in the rate of spending increase)?